“Alright, so: is anypony feeling sick, at all?”
“Nope.”
“Anypony unleash a chaos god from his thousand plus years of imprisonment?”
“He called himself a ‘spirit’, in all honesty,” Midnight said.
The corner of Berry’s mouth curled up in a placating smile. “Fine. Any spirits of chaos on the loose?”
“Big, fat, negat-o, good buddy,” Vinyl confirmed.
“Anypony need to head out to another victory party?”
“That’s not fair, Berry,” Sapphire scolded. “It’s hardly our fault if Ponyville wanted to hold its own party for Discord’s defeat. I can’t blame them; it was a group of local mares and a baby dragon that defeated him after all. I don’t think any of us saw you complaining either.”
Berry rolled her eyes. “Fine, I won’t harp on that last one, but we’ve still had to reschedule this night three times now! First was when almost everypony got that cold right after the gala, then when Mr. Chaos Spirit decided he was tired of prison, and then the party! I just figured we’d get a dragon attack for good measure!”
“Oh, please, a dragon wouldn’t attack us, not within sight of Canterlot,” Lyra said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “Now, werewolves on the other hand…”
“What about that one dragon last year?” Derpy pointed out.
“He was sleeping, not attacking,” Lyra said.
“Look,” Midnight said, a bit loudly to make sure everypony heard. “We’re all here, which means nothing is happening, which means we can all finally play some cards.” The kirin picked up the deck and began shuffling.
-----------------------------
“So how was the gala?” Berry asked after a few hoofs, her mood markedly better.
“It was great!” Derpy said. “There were fancy muffins and I got to meet the Wonderbolts and fancy punch and-”
“Wait, you got to meet some guy named Fancy Punch?” Lyra asked.
“No, the punch was fancy, silly!”
“Right.”
“How about you two?” Berry asked Sapphire and Midnight, discarding two cards and picking up two from the deck.
“We had a nice time,” Sapphire said. “Spike stayed with us since everypony else ran off to do their own thing, we met a professor from Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, and we also met… an acquaintance there.”
“Ooo, an acquaintance,” Vinyl said suggestively.
“It was nothing like that,” Midnight said. “She was somepony we met last time we were up in Canterlot.”
“Then what was with that pause?” Vinyl pressed, picking up three cards. “Pretty good hint she’s more than just an acquaintance.”
“She’s one of the few nobles that actually has a soul. Since we’ve only met her twice it would kind of be presumptuous to call her a friend. Then again that’s just me. If Sapphire wants to call her a friend she has every right to.”
“It more like she sees us as friends,” Sapphire said. “I get the feeling she gets lonely easily, not wanting to be around the other nobles but also not able to mingle with the common pony.”
“Somepony tell her to move out here,” Vinyl said. “Ain’t nothing but joe-shmoes in this town. May not pay as well but at least I get to walk home without some jerk with a title making a comment behind my back.”
Berry’s eyes tabled. “I’m not sure whether to be insulted or not.”
“What about that professor guy?” Lyra asked. “What was he like?”
“Show your cards first ladies,” Midnight said.
They did. “Read’m and weep,” Vinyl said, showing the three aces she had. Groans went up, bits were taken, and cards dealt out.
“The professor?” Lyra asked again as she examined her new cards.
“Yeah, Professor Puzzle Mixer of the genetics department.”
“Vice-head of the science department and teaches genetics,” Sapphire corrected.
“Whatever. Real weirdo; kept asking if he could conduct experiments on me because I was half wyvern.”
“He was excited to meet a pony like you,” Sapphire defended. “It would be like if Berry had a chance to hold a bottle of the rarest liquor in the world.”
“Jurai Sake,” Berry whispered, as if uttering an ancient prayer. “Made from Jurai Rice, which only grows in one temple in a distant, foggy valley. Only one bottle a year is made and nopony knows how to make it except the priests who live there. They say you experience The Great Plains with just one sip.”
Silence.
“See? Like that. He’s not weird, just very devoted to his field.”
“A bottle of rare booze is one thing, but asking to poke and prod a living pony? Still weird.”
“I thought you weren’t an alcoholic,” Lyra said.
“I’m not. Alcoholics don’t know quality, just quantity," Berry informed her.
“So, I heard from my friend that the whole thing blew up in the end,” Vinyl said, discarding two cards. “What’s the 4-1-1 there?”
Midnight shrugged. “Just a string of bad luck. Twilight and the others didn’t get the night they wanted and all their attempts to fix it blew up in each other’s faces. Simultaneously.”
“From what I heard, ‘blew up’ was exactly what happened. My friend told me Pinkie stage-dived, sent some cake flying into some noble plot-head, then Rainbow knocked over some statue and columns, and finally Flutters let loose a bunch of animals. Dude, I would have loved to have been there.”
“You missed the part where Midnight set somepony’s dress on fire,” Sapphire said, her tone making it obvious she still disapproved of the action.
“Seriously!?” the rest of them exclaimed.
“In truth, I set a cheese ball on fire and shot it out into the then panicking crowd. Call me a freak, get a flaming cheese ball shot at you.”
Sapphire snorted disapprovingly while the rest of them howled with laughter.
“I wish I had been there to see that,” Berry said between breaths while at the same time trying not to mess up the pot, deck piles, or show her hoof to the others.
“At least that explains why you ran off,” Derpy said. “I wouldn’t want the guard arresting me, either.”
“Sorry about that again, Derpy,” Midnight said, looking guilty. “But, as it turns out, Princess Celestia found the whole thing about as funny as you all do. Said that the gala was so boring that she invited us in hopes we would wreck it. Well, liven it up, as she put it, but she sure wasn’t angry with us.”
“That’s it. Midnight, please beg the princess for more tickets next year!” Vinyl said with the biggest grin on her face. “I have to see how you destroy it next year!”
“If she sends us tickets again, and I really hope she doesn’t, then I’ll consider it. Anything interesting happen to you guys that night?”
“Nope.”
“Not even close.”
“Bon Bon got a new toy,” Lyra offered.
Silence.
“So, that Discord attack!” Midnight said loudly. “What weird things happened to you all!?”
“I got pepper dumped on me, then I sneezed which knocked over several houses,” Berry offered, taking a quick shine to the new topic.
“My furniture decided to play frisbee with my record collection,” Vinyl said, a haunted look overcoming her. “They got fixed when you guys did whatever you did, but it still... I'll never be able to get that one good jazz record again.”
“Derpy?” Midnight asked worriedly.
“All my muffins ran away!” she said with a sniffle.
“Lyra?”
“I got HANDS!” the unicorn crowed.
Everypony looked over at her.
“Really?” Sapphire asked.
“Yeah! They were so awesome! The knuckles, the palms, the finger nails! Oh, it was glorious. It was a good thing I got them, too, because Bon Bon’s new toy-”
“LYRA! TMI!” they all yelled.
“Oh… sorry. Call?”
They did. Midnight won this time.
“I still can’t believe that you, Windrunner, and Spike took on Discord’s whole army by yourselves,” Berry said as the cards got dealt out again.
“They weren’t exactly smart, just tenacious,” Midnight said, raising the pot. “And endless. If Discord really wanted to get nasty, he’d have made one single giant beast to just step on us. Luckily the idiot liked games way too much.” Mentally, Midnight shivered. Nasty was an understatement. If Discord had been just a little more serious, they most likely wouldn’t be having this game night. “Anyway,” she continued, “didn’t you say something about your little sister coming to town Derpy?”
The wall-eyed pegasus nodded. “Yep. She’s going to be moving in with me, Dinky, and Carrot Top. She and my mom… well… mom never got along well with either of us.”
“Hey, don’t worry about it,” Berry said, patting her gently on her wither. She’d known Derpy the longest out of all of them and knew what she had to be feeling. “We can all come with you to the train station tomorrow and help greet her, or help set up the house for a welcoming party.”
The others all nodded.
“Really!? Thank you!” Derpy exclaimed, tears threatening at the corners of her eyes. “Oh, by the way, full house!”